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Dr Sir Henry Sota, Medical Director Haley Clinic, Port Harcourt says Nigeria has the highest suicide rate in Africa. Sota made this known on Thursday during a virtual seminar tagged:’Suicide among youths’, organized by Dr Sir Henry Sotaand monitored by TheNewsGuru.
Sota noted that suicide management in Nigeria is a team work, adding that everyone has a role to play. He, however, expressed concern on the dearth of data concerning suicide rates in Nigeria because of this stigma, cultural and religious sentiments.
Sota said suicide cases are under reported and grossly under documented.
“Nigeria with our huge population, has the highest suicide rate in Africa. In this part of the world, the society perceives suicide as sinful and a taboo.The stigma makes people hide declaring suicide as accidental death. There is a dearth of data concerning suicide rates in this country because of this stigma, cultural and religious sentiments. Suicide cases are grossly underreported and grossly under documented.
Not too long ago, we had a retrospective study by one Oyetunji which studied a total of 350 suicide reports by newspapers between 2010-2019.The summary of those report showed a male preponderance for cases of completed suicide.
Men are more successful than women in killing themselves, but women have a higher incidents of unsuccessful attempts. So you cannot underrate the attempts by women.
“The second cause of death among youths between 16-29 is suicide. Alcohol, substance abuse are strongly linked to causes of suicide among the youths”.
Speaking further, he noted that comparison on social media amongst youths may contribute to high suicide rate.
“With all the development social media has brought, we must admit that this generation are lacking in social skills, face to face communication and inter personal skills. People are there, hugging their phones, day in, day out. That is a disadvantage. It has been linked to suicide.
This generation has been prone to depression, which may ultimately lead to suicide. Some other drawback of social media and its contribution to suicide among youths includes questioning of self-worth, and self-esteem because of comparison with people who appear better off on social media. Pressure to impress which comes with unrealistic expectations of oneself.
Professor Hope Eghagha, the convener of the virtual seminar said current existing laws in Nigeria criminalize suicide, adding that the laws should be revisited.
“Suicide is on the increase too many people are taking their lives. The current existing laws criminalize suicide. Somebody who is depressed cannot be sent to jail. That law should be revisited “.
Dr James Ugbo who also participated in the event said the society has a lot to do with the perceived rate of increase in suicide.
According to him: “Society has a lot to do with perceived rate of increase in suicide. We need to have policies that reflect care for the young people. A lot of children are exposed to cyberbullying unknown to parents and afraid to talk about these things. Government needs to provide social amenities. We need to stop blaming youths for perceived deficiencies. Let us focus our attention on making things easier for the youths. We need to enact laws that will enhance mental health well-being. We need to remove policy of punishing people who want to commit suicide”.